All the different aspects of advertising. How do they come up with this stuff? It's may be the most annoying thing ever, it may be the most creative thing you've seen, either way, it got your attention.

Tuesday, 11 October 2011

Scary Mary

Commercials on T.V. They can be extremely annoying, or surprisingly entertaining. They are made to make us feel a certain way about what is being sold. Most commercials have happy music playing in the background, this music digs into our subconscious and insists that our life will be happy once we buy the product.

The producers of these ads are pretty much manipulating us, but not necessarily in a bad way, depending on what the product is. In class we were given an article about Nivea "My Silhouette" Cream. Nivea claimed that this new cream could dissolve body fat. A huge lie of course, but people fell for it.

Nivea got in big trouble for this one. The product was discontinued. Now a-days there are restrictions for ads, you can't lie, but you can definitely manipulate. You can cut and paste only the good qualities of what your selling, unless the bad is something crazy and life threatening.

I find it interesting how much of an impact music has in ads. Music can make us feel happy or sad, it can bring up emotions about certain times in our lives, or remind us of products! I can't really describe how easily our perception can be manipulated, but as long as you're familiar with Mary Poppins and the Shining, these videos will explain everything.

Mary Poppins suddenly becomes a scary horror film, the Shining becomes a happy family bonding movie and Duracell becomes a magical battery that will not only power your headphones, it will clear the smoke for people stuck in a forest fire and bring beams of light to your rainy days! But be reminded, these aren't lies, these are misperceptions.